Nairobi Kitchen

Happy Sunday! I always look foward to Sunday mornings because I get inspired to make delicious breakfast without having to worry about time. Lately I'm having mandazi cravings, after that yummy orange mandazi, I still want more. Every body loved that orange flavour in mandazi plus the vibrant color. Today I wanted to add spices to get that warm sweet spiciness. Have you ever tried those recipes that are usually at the back of food packets? I always see them and just brush off, but today I decided hmmmm, what's the worse that could happen? Nothing went wrong, in fact these mandazi were delicious that my sisters were eating them before I finished cooking them. So this recipe has been inspired by the back of my mandazi flour packet with every detail followed. Have you ever tried a recipe from a food packet?

My first memories of coconut oil is when we were really young and mum used to apply it to our hair immediately the braids were off so we can go off to the salon. There was no need for our hairs to be straightened out or blow dried because the coconut oil was instant in softening the hair for it to be combed. Us and our kinky hair needed that coconut oil on our hairs lest it be hell! combing it out. Fast forward to now and I know about coconut oil for cooking with. So far mu most used coconut products are coconut cream, coconut milk and desiccated coconut. I love the taste, flavor and aroma of coconut in food. I have used coconut in my rice dish, I have made coconut french toast that was totally delish! Coconut oil has plenty of benefits that you will be glad you have been using it or if you have not then welcome onboard.

I was craving something sweet and I needed it to be fast so what is my answer to my craving, mug cake yo! Before we get into the thick of things HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY! To every woman working hard to put food on the table, I salute you. Moms, sisters, aunts, daughters, nieces, grandmas every woman out there, you are special and loved. I have been thinking a lot about spices and so I decided to spice up this mug cake with one of my favorite warm spice that is cardamom. Speaking of cardamom, I used to correct people who wrote cardaMOM thinking that it was cardaMON. Am I the only one who thought that? I'm sure am not, I know you thought that too or are still thinking in that direction. Anyway apart from having a fantastic aroma, cardamom has some great health nutrients that benefit your body as a whole. To think that I lived my life without spices! I shudder. This mug cake turned out fluffy soft you would think it was baked in the oven. What has been your favorite mug cake flavour so far? 

My chapati journey has been a long one to say the least. As much as I love to cook chapati nowadays, I woke up one day at 2am in the morning and cooked chapati because I had a chapati craving, it has been a growth curve for me. Growing up in an African setting, knowing how to cook is not a luxury or a maybe-you'll-learn-to-cook kind of thing. It is a REQUIREMENT! You were thrown into deep waters and you had to learn to swim or survive in the kitchen. So back to chapati lessons. Whenever mom would cook, she'd require us to sit and watch her cook and learn because "kesho ni wewe utapika" (tomorrow is your day to cook). Cooking chapati was a chore we all hated but after a while I think I was the only one who actually enjoyed being in the kitchen. So we would cook and the chapatis would turn out shapeless and hard as biscuits! Complaining hoping mom would take over since we had butchered the chapatis, she would wave her finger at us "hizo chapati ngumu na shapeless ndio tutakula tuu!" and tell us we would all eat those chapatis until we learnt. Needless to say, we enjoyed the chapatis as they were until it was no longer a chore, for me at least, my sister still hates cooking chapati she would rather eat rice or noodles. For me the secret to making soft chapati is hot water, you start off nu kneading with a spoon before the water cools off then use hands to knead until smooth. For this process however you need warm water to knead flour because the dough becomes too soft if water is too hot. The DOUGH is what makes a GOOD chapati, get that right and you will enjoy making delicious soft chapati. So lets get on with it.